“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
― Henry David Thoreau
As you may have gathered from my prior prompts and other versions of spontaneity, lists, qualifying, ranking and the like don’t really jive with my modus operandi. Maybe once before they may have ensconced themselves into a preeminence of some fashion.
But now, I cannot say for sure. With things still in process within, perspectives shift. What I want to experience and how I want to feel it are being guided differently. I let go of the wheel. And now, I just want to go with the flow.
For example, it is about 7:13 AM here in Mequon. I am parked at the east end of the kitchen table, watching one of those misting snow falls. A Wisonsin Februrary equivalent of a drizzle. As I rolled out the garbage cans, I can attest that it definitely sounded like that. And it almost smelled like it too. That one of a kind scent which accompanies the light rain of spring. Summer. Or fall. It is only gonna last an hour or so, as the experts claim.
No matter. I am gonna soak it all in. Maybe I will be lucky enough to see Barb and little Chloe Deere meander across the back yard. Cody Golden will alert me if I get distracted here.
So if things have already begun as such, anything more is purely a blessing.
Anything less? Well, look at the start. Already ideal.
And tomorrow?
Well, if I am granted that one too, sounds pretty ideal to me.
How ’bout you?
“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”
― Thomas Merton
Perspective, to me, is largely vision. Maybe not so literally. But perhaps more so tangibly. How what you have experienced, embraced, engaged in, exchanged or exhumed have come to currently define your presence and being in this moment.
The combination of significant life events and time have the potential to create wonder, fulfillment and joy. On the flip side, they can also work in the opposite direction, producing woe, abandonment and despair. All of which are contingent on perspective. The tangible.
Of all the many tangible gifts of perspective granted to me through my ongoing experience in football, the two that stand apart involve adversity.
The first, spoken by a true mentor was this: “Adversity is never an if proposition, but only a when event”. The other, of more recent vintage, read was this, “event plus response equals outcome”
The theme central to each of these perspectives?
Opportunity as it conveyed through choice.
For in the former, when adversity occurs, you may exercise your free will to choose how you will respond. That decision will ultimately reveal the opportunity that lay in all adversity. Or, lead to fight or flight, being seen only as a threat. In the latter, the equation involving a tangible perspective is fully fleshed out. E+R=O. Applicable to virutally any and all interactions, whether trying or accommodating.
So, back to the prompt.
Lacking a true, tangible perspective regarding life events added to the passage of time has wreaked some havoc around these parts. Simply thinking things will get better, this too shall pass and parking it on the back burner have a tendency to place the onus elsewhere. Deflect responsibility. Even blame in the worst sense.
Choosing a path of avoidance over acceptance, gifting those calamities to other sources while delaying tangible engagement produces exactly the outcome you chose.
On the other hand, genuine acceptance, honest ownership and fully intentional association with all events, in real time, will effect not just change, but the outcome desired. Opportunities found in all manner of adversity. Positive, fulfilling and lasting outcomes conveyed through choice.
Assuming this tangible perspective creates in me a joyful anticipation of life events. And my soul’s desire and most ardent wish is that they will all fit within my ultimate passage of time. I no longer simply envision where it is I am going and what I am starting to become. I can actually feel to movement. The change. My outcome.
Finally.
No longer if.
Just when.
Being more present creates a compelling awareness of a genuine resonance within my core. Moments are literally filled with opportunities of enlightenment. Subject matter with origins multiple millennia ago, intermeshed within generation after generation, touching all aspects of life.
Old leading to New, bringing us all to now.
Me especially.
There is nothing random, circumstantial or accidental about any of it. Coincidence perhaps. But only when defined as Mr. Einstein saw it.
In the Old Testament, Bishop Barron offered that one of the most important words used to describe God is the Judaic term “chesed”, meaning tender mercy. A loving kindness, representing active, steadfast love, mercy and grace. Compassion.
In the New Testament, God is described in the First Letter of John as “agape”, or simply, love. A love of the most highest form. Selfless, unconditional and charitable. To be given without any expectation of return. Willing the good of another.
Live fully, guided by a tender mercy that exudes love for another.
Build a life of compassion by willing the good of another.
An intention initially expressed thousands of years ago, producing a genuine resonance to the core today.
Garnered through presence. A most divine gift.
Old leading to New.
Bringing me to now.
...my temporary assignment. 